Legacy: Arthurian Saga (62 page)

The messengers took Merlin and his
mother to King Vortigern. The King received the mother with all the
attention due to her birth, and asked her who was the father of the
lad. She replied that she did not know. "Once," she said, "when I
and my damsels were in our chambers, one appeared to me in the
shape of a handsome youth who, embracing me and kissing me, stayed
with me some time, but afterwards did as suddenly vanish away. He
returned many times to speak to me when I was sitting alone, but
never again did I catch sight of him. After he had haunted me in
this way for a long time, he lay with me for some while in the
shape of a man, and left me heavy with child." The King, amazed at
her words, asked Maugantius the soothsayer whether such a thing
might be. Maugantius assured him that such things were well known,
and that Merlin must have been begotten by one of the "spirits
there be betwixt the moon and the earth, which we do call incubus
daemons."

Merlin, who had listened to all this,
then demanded that he should be allowed to confront the wizards.
"Bid thy wizards come before me, and I will convict them of having
devised a lie." The King, struck by the youth's boldness and
apparent lack of fear, did as he asked and sent for the wizards. To
whom Merlin spoke as follows: "Since ye know not what it is that
doth hinder the foundation being laid of this tower, ye have given
counsel that the mortar thereof should be slaked with my blood, so
that the tower should stand forthwith. Now tell me, what is it that
lieth hid beneath the foundation, for somewhat is there that doth
not allow it to stand?" But the wizards, afraid of showing
ignorance, held their peace. Then said Merlin (whose other name is
Ambrosius): "My lord the King, call thy workmen and bid them dig
below the tower, and a pool shalt thou find beneath it that doth
forbid thy walls to stand." This was done, and the pool uncovered.
Merlin then commanded that the pool should be drained by conduits;
two stones, he said, would be found at the bottom, where two
dragons, red and white, were lying asleep. When the pool was duly
drained, and the stones uncovered, the dragons woke and began to
fight ferociously, until the red had defeated and killed the white.
The King, amazed, asked Merlin the meaning of the sight, and
Merlin, raising his eyes to heaven, prophesied the coming of
Ambrosius and the death of Vortigern. Next morning, early, Aurelius
Ambrosius landed at Totnes in Devon.

After Ambrosius had conquered
Vortigern and the Saxons and had been crowned King he brought
together master craftsmen from every quarter and asked them to
contrive some new kind of building that should stand forever as a
memorial. None of them were able to help him, until Tremorinus,
Archbishop of Caerleon, suggested that the King should send for
Merlin, Vortigern's prophet, the cleverest man in the kingdom,
"whether in foretelling that which shall be, or in devising engines
of artifice." Ambrosius forthwith sent out messengers, who found
Merlin in the country of Gwent, at the fountain of Galapas where he
customarily dwelt. The King received him with honor, and first
asked him to foretell the future, but Merlin replied: "Mysteries of
such kind be in no wise to be revealed save only in sore need. For
if I were to utter them lightly or to make laughter, the spirit
that teaches me would be dumb and would forsake me in the hour of
need." The King then asked him about the monument, but when Merlin
advised him to send for the "Dance of the Giants that is in
Killare, a mountain in Ireland," Ambrosius laughed, saying it was
impossible to move stones that everyone knew had been set there by
giants. Eventually, however, the King was persuaded to send his
brother Uther, with fifteen thousand men, to conquer Gilloman, King
of Ireland, and bring back the Dance. Uther's army won the day, but
when they tried to dismantle the giant circle of Killare and bring
down the stones, they could not shift them. When at length they
confessed defeat, Merlin put together his own engines, and by means
of these laid the stones down easily, and carried them to the
ships, and presently brought them to the site near Amesbury where
they were to be set up. There Merlin again assembled his engines,
and set up the Dance of Killare at Stonehenge exactly as it had
stood in Ireland. Shortly after this a great star appeared in the
likeness of a dragon, and Merlin, knowing that it betokened
Ambrosius' death, wept bitterly, and prophesied that Uther would be
King under the sign of the Dragon, and that a son would be born to
him "of surpassing mighty dominion, whose power shall extend over
all the realms that lie beneath the ray (of the
star)..."

The following Easter, at the
coronation feast, King Uther fell in love with Ygraine, wife of
Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. He lavished attention on her, to the
scandal of the court; she made no response, but her husband, in
fury, retired from the court without leave, taking his wife and men
at arms back to Cornwall. Uther, in anger, commanded him to return,
but Gorlois refused to obey. Then the King, enraged beyond measure,
gathered an army and marched into Cornwall, burning the cities and
castles. Gorlois had not enough troops to withstand him, so he
placed his wife in the castle of Tintagel, the safest refuge, and
himself prepared to defend the castle of Dimilioc. Uther
immediately laid siege to Dimilioc, holding Gorlois and his troops
trapped there, while he cast about for some way of breaking into
the castle of Tintagel to ravish Ygraine. After somedays he asked
advice from one of his familiars called Ulfin. "Do thou therefore
give me counsel in what wise I may fulfill my desire," said the
King, "for, and I do not, of mine inward sorrow shall I die."
Ulfin, telling him what he knew already -- that Tintagel was
impregnable -- suggested that he send for Merlin. Merlin, moved by
the King's apparent suffering, promised to help. By his magic arts
he changed Uther into the likeness of Gorlois, Ulfin into Jordan,
Gorlois' friend, and himself into Brithael, one of Gorlois'
captains. The three of them rode to Tintagel, and were admitted by
the porter. Ygraine taking Uther to be her husband the Duke,
welcomed him, and took him to her bed. So Uther lay with Ygraine
that night, "and she had no thought to deny him in aught he might
desire." That night, Arthur was conceived.

But in the meantime fighting had
broken out at Dimilioc, and Gorlois, venturing out to give battle,
was killed. Messengers came to Tintagel to tell Ygraine of her
husband's death. When they found "Gorlois," apparently still alive,
closeted with Ygraine, they were speechless, but the King then
confessed the deception, and a few days later married
Ygraine.

Uther Pendragon was to reign fifteen
more years. During those years he saw nothing of his son Arthur,
who on the night of his birth was carried down to the postern gate
of Tintagel and delivered into the hands of Merlin, who cared for
the child in secret until the time came for Arthur to inherit the
throne of Britain.

Throughout Arthur's long reign Merlin
advised and helped him. When Merlin was an old man he fell dotingly
in love with a young girl, Vivian, who persuaded him, as the price
of her love, to teach her all his magic arts. When he had done so
she cast a spell on him which left him bound and sleeping; some say
in a cave near a grove of whitethorn trees, some say in a tower of
crystal, some say hidden only by the glory of the air around him.
He will wake when King Arthur wakes, and come back in the hour of
his country's need.

The Hollow Hills by Mary
Stewart

The Hollow Hills

Copyright 2009 Mary
Stewart

All rights reserved. No part of this
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valid.

This is a work of fiction. All of the
characters, names, incidents, places, organizations, and dialogue
in this novel are either the products of the author's imagination
or are used fictitiously.

BOOK I THE WAITING
1

There was a lark singing somewhere
high above. Light fell dazzling against my closed eyelids, and with
it the song, like a distant dance of water. I opened my eyes. Above
me arched the sky, with its invisible singer lost somewhere in the
light and floating blue of a spring day. Everywhere was a sweet,
nutty smell which made me think of gold, and candle flames, and
young lovers. Something, smelling not so sweet, stirred beside me,
and a rough young voice said: "Sir?"

I turned my head. I was lying on turf,
in a hollow among furze bushes. These were full of blossom, golden,
sweet-smelling flames called out by the spring sun. Beside me a boy
knelt. He was perhaps twelve years old, dirty, with a matted shag
of hair, and clad in some coarse brown cloth; his cloak, made of
skins roughly stitched together, showed rents in a dozen places. He
had a stick in one hand. Even without the way he smelled I could
have guessed his calling, for all around us his herd of goats
grazed among the furze bushes, cropping the young green
prickles.

At my movement he got quickly to his
feet and backed off a little, peering, half wary and half hopeful,
through the filthy tangle of hair. So he had not robbed me yet. I
eyed the heavy stick in his hand, vaguely wondering through the
mists of pain whether I could help myself even against this
youngster. But it seemed that his hopes were only for a reward. He
was pointing at something out of sight beyond the bushes. "I caught
your horse for you. He's tied over there. I thought you were
dead."

I raised myself to an elbow. Round me
the day seemed to swing and dazzle. The furze blossom smoked like
incense in the sun. Pain seeped back slowly, and with it, on the
same tide, memory.

"Are you hurt bad?"

"Nothing to matter, except my hand.
Give me time, I'll be all right. You caught my horse, you say? Did
you see me fall?"

"Aye. I was over yonder." He pointed
again. Beyond the mounds of yellow blossom the land rose, smooth
and bare, to a rounded upland broken by grey rock seamed with
winter thorn. Behind the shoulder of the land the sky had that look
of limitless and empty distance which spoke of the sea. "I saw you
come riding up the valley from the shore, going slow. I could see
you was ill, or maybe sleeping on the horse. Then he put his foot
wrong -- a hole, likely -- and you came off. You've not been lying
long. I'd just got down to you."

He stopped, his mouth dropping open. I
saw shock in his face. As he spoke I had been pushing myself up
till I was able to sit, propped by my left arm, and carefully lift
my injured right hand into my lap. It was a swollen, crusted mass
of dried blood, through which fresh red was running. I had, I
guessed, fallen on it when my horse had stumbled. The faint had
been merciful enough. The pain was growing now, wave on wave
grinding, with the steady beat and drag of the tide over shingle,
but the faintness had gone, and my head, though still aching from
the blow, was clear.

"Mother of mercy!" The boy was looking
sick. "You never did that falling from your horse?"

"No. It was a fight."